[Applause]
On June 2nd 1994 the day after my mom’s
birthday my 18 year old brother Marlon
was murdered he was 6 years older than I
was and we called on peewee as a young
girl I remember being amazed at the
talent he possessed for drawing I can
recall walking around in my granny’s
house and finding his drawings on the
table under the table on the wall in his
room his drawings were everywhere he
worked on plain white paper with number
2 pencils and sometimes he drew comic
book characters sometimes typography and
sometimes y’all I had no idea what he
was drawing
I wondered what world would have opened
themselves and welcomed him what if he
had not been shot by one of his peers on
the street what if he had been able to
fully explore his talent my family and I
only have ideas about who he would have
become maybe a world famous artist or
lately I wonder if he would have found
success in a different creative industry
years later in college I was introduced
to the idea of carumba
it’s a Swahili word that means
creativity but in the celebration of
Kwanzaa it’s a principle that teaches us
that we should always always do as much
as we can in such a way that we leave
our community more beautiful and more
beneficial than it was when we inherited
it
I inherited the community that murdered
my brother what could I do to make that
place more beautiful and more beneficial
well I founded an organization Kumba
Community Arts to create a safe space
for students like peewee you know the
creative ones the students who don’t
play in a band and who don’t play sports
where I could be intentional about
introducing students of color to careers
and design and advertising because
honestly careers in the creative
industries somehow evade us there’s no
shortage of research and editorials that
speak to both the gender and the racial
discrimination that plague the design
and ad industries according to 2015 data
from the US Department of Labor only 3.5
percent of all designers are African
American and that number is down from
5.4 percent in 2013 and these dismal
numbers they come years after the
industry has tried to recruit a more
diverse group of college students maybe
maybe the solution is to start earlier
what if we began to immerse high school
students in the design and AD industries
and what if they were taught by design
professionals how to conduct an initial
client meeting to discover their
client’s needs how to write creative
briefs how to create present and
sometimes represent final designs to
their clients all while learning to be
confident in their abilities and the
dollar value of their work and what if
we connected them to local and regional
colleges and
universities and all of this was
supported by agencies and individuals
who believe in the value of a diverse
design workforce it would look like
Keanu a 16 year old high school junior
who has used her understanding of
graphic design to create custom sneakers
it would look like Alissa a 17 year old
high school senior who wants to found a
global nonprofit to introduce young
people to the principles of
entrepreneurship it would look like Shay
a 17 year old high school senior who
without this kind of creative
opportunity says and these are her words
I probably be at home wasting away and
failing in all of my classes Shay has
done designed for our local NPR
affiliate and during her Christmas break
she completed a three week paid design
internship all three of these young
women are students of the team design
Academy I run at Coburg Community Arts
where we cultivate young black design
leaders they learn their power as
designers to both reflect but also to
create culture to tackle through visual
communications design thinking in
problem-solving the many issues and
challenges that plague our society they
become powerful change agents and
through design they redesign the world
so the funny thing is I’m not a designer
I didn’t wake up one morning with the
plans to see more students like Shay
pursuing careers in design and
advertising I did I do
grieve the loss of my brother’s life I
do love and assume responsibility for
our community and I make it more
beautiful and more beneficial by
creating the safe space I wish my
brother had by investing in young people
the way I wish someone had invested in
peewee and this this is my casa camba
but the truth is we have all each and
every one of us inherited a community a
cause an idea a place for which we can
and should assume responsibility when we
come on Ville together we have the power
to not only transform an industry for
our local communities our cities our
state and even the world we must commit
ourselves to doing the hard work and the
hard work to make our inheritance more
beautiful and more beneficial for those
who will come behind us thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
On June 2nd 1994 the day after my mom’s
birthday my 18 year old brother Marlon
was murdered he was 6 years older than I
was and we called on peewee as a young
girl I remember being amazed at the
talent he possessed for drawing I can
recall walking around in my granny’s
house and finding his drawings on the
table under the table on the wall in his
room his drawings were everywhere he
worked on plain white paper with number
2 pencils and sometimes he drew comic
book characters sometimes typography and
sometimes y’all I had no idea what he
was drawing
I wondered what world would have opened
themselves and welcomed him what if he
had not been shot by one of his peers on
the street what if he had been able to
fully explore his talent my family and I
only have ideas about who he would have
become maybe a world famous artist or
lately I wonder if he would have found
success in a different creative industry
years later in college I was introduced
to the idea of carumba
it’s a Swahili word that means
creativity but in the celebration of
Kwanzaa it’s a principle that teaches us
that we should always always do as much
as we can in such a way that we leave
our community more beautiful and more
beneficial than it was when we inherited
it
I inherited the community that murdered
my brother what could I do to make that
place more beautiful and more beneficial
well I founded an organization Kumba
Community Arts to create a safe space
for students like peewee you know the
creative ones the students who don’t
play in a band and who don’t play sports
where I could be intentional about
introducing students of color to careers
and design and advertising because
honestly careers in the creative
industries somehow evade us there’s no
shortage of research and editorials that
speak to both the gender and the racial
discrimination that plague the design
and ad industries according to 2015 data
from the US Department of Labor only 3.5
percent of all designers are African
American and that number is down from
5.4 percent in 2013 and these dismal
numbers they come years after the
industry has tried to recruit a more
diverse group of college students maybe
maybe the solution is to start earlier
what if we began to immerse high school
students in the design and AD industries
and what if they were taught by design
professionals how to conduct an initial
client meeting to discover their
client’s needs how to write creative
briefs how to create present and
sometimes represent final designs to
their clients all while learning to be
confident in their abilities and the
dollar value of their work and what if
we connected them to local and regional
colleges and
universities and all of this was
supported by agencies and individuals
who believe in the value of a diverse
design workforce it would look like
Keanu a 16 year old high school junior
who has used her understanding of
graphic design to create custom sneakers
it would look like Alissa a 17 year old
high school senior who wants to found a
global nonprofit to introduce young
people to the principles of
entrepreneurship it would look like Shay
a 17 year old high school senior who
without this kind of creative
opportunity says and these are her words
I probably be at home wasting away and
failing in all of my classes Shay has
done designed for our local NPR
affiliate and during her Christmas break
she completed a three week paid design
internship all three of these young
women are students of the team design
Academy I run at Coburg Community Arts
where we cultivate young black design
leaders they learn their power as
designers to both reflect but also to
create culture to tackle through visual
communications design thinking in
problem-solving the many issues and
challenges that plague our society they
become powerful change agents and
through design they redesign the world
so the funny thing is I’m not a designer
I didn’t wake up one morning with the
plans to see more students like Shay
pursuing careers in design and
advertising I did I do
grieve the loss of my brother’s life I
do love and assume responsibility for
our community and I make it more
beautiful and more beneficial by
creating the safe space I wish my
brother had by investing in young people
the way I wish someone had invested in
peewee and this this is my casa camba
but the truth is we have all each and
every one of us inherited a community a
cause an idea a place for which we can
and should assume responsibility when we
come on Ville together we have the power
to not only transform an industry for
our local communities our cities our
state and even the world we must commit
ourselves to doing the hard work and the
hard work to make our inheritance more
beautiful and more beneficial for those
who will come behind us thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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